Title: I love playing with Barbie dolls
Author: Eveyln Moore/Corrine Barraclough
Publication: UK 3AM Mirror
Issue: June 2005
He’s one of the sexiest stars in Hollywood but Johnny Depp couldn’t be less bothered about his A-List Hollywood heart-throb status. The 41-year-old hunk prefers the simple life with his family in France to the glitz and glamour of Tinseltown. But don‘t worry you haven’t seen the last of those smouldering came-to-bed eyes, girls. Johnny’s back in two films this month. Starring along side him in The Libertine is Brit talent Smantha Morton and funny man Johnny Vegas, in which Johnny D plays the lead as a drunken 17th century poet. Dreamy Depp also shares a screen with Kate Winslet in Finding Neverland, the story of J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan. And if that isn’t enough to keep Depp fans happy, you can also start fantasying about his return as Jack Sparrow in the sequel to box office smash Pirates of the Caribbean.
You‘ve always been labelled as a bit of a rebel in Hollywood — Is that true?
Well I’ve never though of myself that way! I never got that whole rebel thing, you know, the rebellious image. It was something they slapped on me just to have a name for the product I think.
Maybe it’s also because you’re no pushover?
Well, my mum told me never to take any sh*t from anybody. That’s probably the best advice I’ve ever been given.
Fair enough. You’ve always done such different roles, we couldn’t pigeonhole you even if we wanted to.
I think this second you get pigeonholed one of two things happens. You either become rich and successful or it’s game over. If you find something that you’re good at and stick to it, you’re unfair to the audience.
Lily Rose will be pleased that you‘re doing a sequel to Pirates. You must have really enjoyed the first one…
Oh yeah. The amount of fun that l had on the first one was criminal. There were moments where the director and I would look at each other and just go ‘Do you actually believe we’re getting paid for doing this? This isn’t a job.’ So with the original team coming back, it’s a no brainer really.
Who Inspired those crazy rings in Pirates?
Oh! I’ve been wearing those skulls for a long, long time!
ls it true that you’ve never watched ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’?
l don’t watch most of my films. L always figured that once my job is done then anything beyond that is none of my business. So if I can avoid seeing the final product, then I will. Because all I have in my head is the experience, and I feel very good about the experience.
Do you miss Hollywood at all now you live in France?
Oh, being in France has done wonders for my relationship with Hollywood! I’m so removed from it that I don’t know anything any more – I don’t know who anybody is, who’s rich, who’s poor, who’s successful, who’s a drag. I don’t know anyone. So it’s great. I come in and I don’t have to think about anything but my work.
Would you ever move back to Hollywood?
I still live there sometimes, well, I go back and forth. But I wouldn’t move back fulltime, no. I certainly don’t want to raise my kids there.
So what is it about France you love so much?
I’ve been drawn to France for years. I’ve never really understood why, and then I went over there in 1998 to do a movie with the director Roman Polanski. I met my girl and never left! She got pregnant, had a baby, and it’s been really refreshing to be away from America.
